The Art of the Possible
Make it better.
What if we assumed we could make things better, and then worked out how?
This is the premise of POSSIBLE. We work with leaders who are building organisations for an improving world. These leaders know there are better ways to produce the goods and services the world needs, and they’re not listening to those who say it can’t be done.
We are for entrepreneurs building the businesses of the future, writing a new rulebook for a new economy that is smart, connected, fair, electrified, regenerative and renewable.
Over the next decade, trillions of dollars will be deployed into climate resilience, carbon reduction and nature conservation as the world grapples with the climate and nature crises.
This capital will spawn the growth of an entire class of new businesses intent on delivering impact and prosperity, at scale, in a low-carbon world.
What these businesses all share is a need to be clear about their direction, to make choices about where they will compete and how they will win. They need to be able to tell their story in ways that people can understand. They need leadership teams who are aligned with their vision, and they need to be organised to execute at scale.
They need to be experts in the Art of the Possible: Matching their strategic intent with their capability to deliver.
But they need more: The imagination to envisage a future world based on different assumptions than the assumptions most businesses are operating on now.
In our work with leading climate, energy and nature entrepreneurs, what we see most is clear-eyed insight into what the future will look like and a commitment to build businesses that will thrive in this new world.
These leaders are building teams around them who, when presented with a new idea, don’t look for reasons it won’t work. Instead they ask, ‘What would have to be true for this to work?’ and ‘How can we make it happen?’
This process of imagining what might be and then acting on this insight is what design thinking and strategy guru Roger Martin calls abductive reasoning. We call it practicing the Art of the Possible and it’s what we use to help organisations find their strategy for success in an improving world.
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Latest Research
In March 2023, in partnership with research firm Mobium Group, and with technical and subject matter input from climate change advisory and solutions firm Pollination, we asked 2,035 Australians what they thought about nature, what they expected governments and businesses to do to protect it, and how they would like to have information communicated to them about it.
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So, what is strategy?
Strategy is the process of making decisions about your future direction when the stakes are high and resources are limited.
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Vision, Purpose, Mission, Values. Can you say what they mean?
Can you say what these four words mean? Would your colleagues define them the same way? If you were to draft a statement for each of them, how would you go about it? Would your colleagues agree? Would the answers describe, succinctly, what your organisation stands for?
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The tipping point is here
In ten years, the world will look radically different than the way it does today. Everything will be electrified, nature will be valued, regenerative and renewable will be the norm.